Susie Batt on Opera’s crypto browser and NFT functionalities

0:00I'm Ashton Addison from Block West capital for investment pitch media and today on the crypto coin show we have Susie bat the crypto ecosystems lead for Opera browser Susie welcome to the show and thank you for taking the time today thank you Ashton and uh thanks for covering this crazy industry you're very welcome it's so exciting I can't not cover it because there's just so much to

0:24talk about and you know I've been a long-term user of the Opera browser and I'm so excited to see that they're being Innovative integrating web 3 functionality uh crypto wallets Integrations the like I'm excited to dive into what your team's been working on uh your your team's efforts at Devcon and getting involved in the web 3 space and what's to come because I know that

0:48there's more up the sleeves of your team so let's just break right into it with you know a little bit of a high level of like opera on the on the on the crypto side well uh so for many uh listeners who maybe are us-based might not be so familiar with Opera but it's a Norwegian based browser company

1:16um in Oslo and it's been around since 1995. it actually was the first Native browser in a mobile phone that'd be Nokia and Erickson um understandably and it um you know part of it um charm is that it's this kind of understated strong um reliable secure brand for over 25 years

1:44extremely popular in Europe Africa and Asia and um you know just setting its sites now um well in recent years like the past five years in in the US so um thanks for being a user an early user um and um I should also add that there are four different products across Opera so the Red O you see on the screen

2:13that's the flagship browser we also have the Opera GX browser which is incredibly popular among Gamers and there's also the Opera Mini browser that's um a really high throughput um for non- mobile I mean for mobile networks in Africa that don't have such great secure reliable infrastructure and then

2:44this year we launched the Opera crypto browser which is like all the like whistles and bells and whistles for um crypto enthusiasts amazing and that's great to hear and yeah I feel privileged to have been using it for almost 10 years ago um you know before you know the U.S sort of found out about how awesome it is and I didn't know there was a gaming browser

3:11as well that's super cool um but now of course you know crypto near and dear to my heart uh seeing crypto wallets Integrations I want to take advantage of those kind of functionalities um so in terms of the Opera crypto browser when did you guys first start working on that and sort of what are the flagship functionalities of the crypto browser so um back in 2018

3:37um a very forward-thinking um colleague uh first um launched the native crypto wallet and it was the first of its kind it was 2017 2018. um and in in in support and parallel uh collaboration with um consensus at the time launched this notion of like a three web three

4:06um uh wallet and since then um it's grown to be multi-wallet and multi-chain and also within the search bar you can have native resolution of ipfs domains such as a feo Unstoppable um handshake um

4:32I'm also missing yeah the Emojis um and um you know we we think that this experience should be seamless for the user um just like our Flagship product is seamless um and you can within the crypto browser you can toggle between different wallets if you like and not just um use the Opera crypto wallet

5:02um but we can dive deeper into that functionality very cool and I do have some Unstoppable domains things like that and it's great to see that the browsers are starting to think that you know obviously this is going to be something that's huge moving forward and I had them on the show recently you know they're registering like 100 000 domains per month and

5:23there's only like a couple million that have been registered but it's going to be like a billion and eventually that will probably be you know the status quo for domains when you're typing it in on Opera it's going to be like a web three domain yeah we're a proud partner of theirs and they have um moved you know really quickly into this space and in recent recent years but um

5:51you know I I'd love to to talk oh ens is also another one that's natively resolved and we're also like the 19th largest uh token holder of ens tokens in the Dow so we've been there early um you know quietly supporting um and and kind of waiting for um the rest of the ecosystem to kind of catch up which I think it's really now that's amazing to hear and

6:19you know uh the crypto wallet obviously that sounds like the first most important set of integration I and but I've also seen that other browsers are starting to catch on to the same like you know we should probably get in on this and um just having a wallet by itself is becoming not just a competitive Advantage once everybody integrates it and there's so many other wallets that

6:43aren't in browsers as well that you sort of have to compete with you know why should I keep it in my browser when I have one on my phone and I have one on the exchange and I have one here and there um how do you like make a good user experience yeah with the wallet yeah so you know we're a browser company everybody knows how to browse web one Web Two was like

7:08you know info Gathering uh sharing and this web free um or web five or six or you know whatever you want to call it um is really changing like flipping the Paradigm on its head and saying um you know let's use web to know-hows for the past 25 years solid design ux experience but access web3 Technologies and that's what we are

7:40really good at and I think it's our sweet spot I hope that other companies jump in because this is the path this is you're moving towards decentralization and no one point of authority um you shouldn't have to choose just one wallet you shouldn't even have choose you know one one chain so we have announced it's the industry first wallet selector allowing users to seamlessly

8:07toggle between various wallet extensions and access not only their assets and and dapps with greater efficiency but you can choose the wallet directly in the browser address bar and that includes metamask you know that was my first wallet when I joined consensus that was you know that was like the only wallet I think like yeah five six years ago trust

8:32wallet and hundreds of other wallets um are supported based on the standard evm web3 interface so the that aside you know not every user thankfully will have will be used to all the pain points that us native crypto users have been using wallets and that means like no communication um no messaging like your your

9:02transaction is you know um we don't even say the word transaction like you know um it's you've got to flip between etherscan to check um you know whether the um whether it's been signed and and it's just laborious and nerve-wracking for the Normie and so what Opera is is hoping to do um is make that

9:29interface intuitive yeah I know obviously that's super important is that more important really than sometimes just having you know a few extra coins in the wallet is like the user experience especially for people that are just getting in you know how it's like Amazon you want like the least amount of clicks as possible and easy as possible uh but but obviously

9:53secure and safe as well and I think that that aspect is very important exactly and I would also add there are key features um within the crypto browser which um which are security features such as the world's first web3 browsers secure clipboard um that's something that maybe normies don't think is such um that should be a

10:22normal feature but in fact a secure clipboard is not the norm in um in in crypto there's phishing protection there's a legit a malicious address Checker and also you know in addition to the multi the multi-wallet management tool yeah I know I'm glad you mentioned that because uh you know as a more experienced user in crypto it's not just the fact that there's a wallet in the

10:50browser that attracts uh me to it but it's also you know and this is becoming ever more prevalent with just every regular everyday users as well is like what's the security of the Opera browser itself you know when people are getting more choosy about their browsers as we see you know whether the browser is taking their cookies or tracking them in different ways or you know their search

11:14results are politically biased towards some result that they want you to see and like all of these sort of factors combine on what people decide is the browser that they're going to want to use yeah and I would also add that you know it is while the the first world nations are talking privacy that really means different things around the world if we

11:39operate um worldwide and we've got deep deep user base in in Asia and Africa so in Latin America too so um you know that while that means different different things to different privacy means different things in those regions we have a very reliable secure

12:08you know security team for the past 25 years working on web security so we're bringing that know-how into web3 into the crypto ecosystem so we're not really having to relearn or integrate those features um without that experience like we've had that experience for so many decades yeah I know that's a huge advantage and and speaking of Latin America as well it

12:39seems like there's a lot going on you know in Latin America with the growth of web3 I know that the the Devcon just happened in Colombia and Opera was there as well you were there maybe you can talk about what happened there how is Opera getting involved and you know what are you seeing in the industry you know in this past month here uh well you know Devcon rotates every

13:04year um from Asia to America to Europe so this year it was based in um in Bogota uh it was great to see the depth of blockchain knowledge there I'd never been to South America before so um uh it was just like uh overwhelming at the use cases including um the preservation of cultures um uh with indigenous people in the

13:33rainforest using blockchain you know it was just like what is it uh and I think you know my biggest takeaways are that um zkp uh Roll-Ups are come in they are you know they're calling it layer three um so that's you know I would be on the lookout next year for a lot of use cases um in you know regarding zkp privacy

14:05um I think Aztec had a had really good showing there um and I would also say um social graphing is really uh taking off being able to permission out who sees your social posts and deciding and not only deciding who gets to see it but like owning your

14:34actual messages or you know the equivalent of tweets um and having that um empowerment um you know back in your hands um and then I would say you know there was there's a lot of there's a lot of enthusiasm around music and ticketing and how nfts will support that going forward whether it's fan based you know gated communities and access to artists

15:07or just ticketing to concerts uh just a lot of um use cases for entertainment excited to to see nfts and web3 move into these other industries that you know they're not sort of a technology first it's not the finance industry but it's other Industries sort of what we saw with art and nfts it brings a whole new branch of people into web3 and and I

15:36did see you know vitalik's sort of mini talk he put it up on the web of both the zero knowledge proofs um there's some great examples of all those things you just spoke about how much of the the Devcon for ethereum do you think was relatable to the Opera browser and was there anything there specific that your team is like writing down like okay this

15:56is going to be the next feature inside of Opera well I would say you know as um the spirit of Devcon um is so Tech um Centric as it as it has always been um but I I heard the Battle Cry for more ux UI designers and making the experience just much more intuitive um and and if we're gonna scale this for

16:24Mass adoption it's it we it's unacceptable having to jump the Hoops that we have um to do in the in the interface piece but you know we've also got a lot of work to do on the regulatory side because that's another huge impasse that every state you know I'm in New York and I can't even unramp unless I'm on a centralized exchange which sort of feels really not very Innovative for for New

16:55York and you know um and in the U.S but um I I'd say you know the Innovation happens at that level um at that at that Dev level so we we have to be there um and and the youth has that Innovation and and they are all there and it's been two or three years 19 2019 um since the last Devcon so there's like

17:22a whole new Rush yeah um of of developers who have entered the ecosystem and you know they're again mobile first they're crypto native um they're just out of school they've endured you know um maybe the last couple years of school during the pandemic and they are working remotely they're digital Nomads and they've entered in the ecosystem through

17:49these different chains and they're they've got fresh eyes and it's so exciting to be there to to like brainstorm and see how their using blockchain to solve problems and it's incredible how much has happened since the last Devcon you know I feel like the industry 10x is in size every every time it happens and it is very important uh that Opera was there I

18:16think so it's great to hear about your insights from being on the floor there and Opera already has like a lot of great Integrations but there's so much happening as you mentioned with the zero knowledge proofs and things Yet to Come still in web 3. what do you and your team have on the crypto side in the very near future here for for Q4 and leading

18:40into 2023 in things that you're working on you may release into the Opera browser so I'm so excited for like this last quarter we've just integrated um mirror and elrond we've completed that um and we will be making some announcements during the keynote um I'll be speaking at L Ron X day next week uh next Friday so we've got a big

19:09announcement there um but in addition to those Integrations um we are going to launch another product at nft London so there's this big movement for Opera to um um to get on the Creator side of nfts so nft London and art basil this year will be two events

19:39um we'll we'll have um an nft Creator tool announcement at Art Basel but at nft London you know we'll showcase um that's also next week it's a busy week uh so we'll be showcasing this cool new nft um assistant widget um so I'm gonna like uh just kind of um spoil it a little bit but um but it's you know off chain on chain

20:09analytics um it's sort of like a collection detail so you can like click on the collection instead of like opening up all these tabs or um you know researching um things like uh like nft collections but I don't want to say anymore um overall a big huge push this um uh quarter for nfts amazing I'm looking forward to it and it's great to

20:39hear that you're getting involved so deeply in all these conferences and doing the Keynotes uh I really feel like this is a huge step for Opera to be you know that go-to browser for for the crypto natives um and I'm excited to see more growth for your team um for the viewers that aren't already using Opera and they want to check out the wallet in the browser or get

20:59download the crypto version do they just go to the main Opera website or what's the best way to to get the wallet so you can go to the Google store or Apple Store and download the Opera crypto browser I mean you can download all of them um and but um to get like a very web free experience um um the blue opera crypto browser um I I think the desktop I mean I'm on

21:28desktop right now um looking at it so um you know you could go for that first but then sync with your other devices um but be you know keep in mind that that wallet that is the SDK is is Javascript so it's you can access that wallet in every single Opera product the same wallet amazing well thank you so much for the insights

21:57Susie and I'm really excited to see uh the growth of all these new functionalities especially in nfts for for Opera crypto browser to come uh I I appreciate you taking the time today and let's follow up in the near future great Ashton I hope to see you between here and there